2022 Cohort
8
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There are, of course, issues regarding this aim. For example, depending on who holds access to what has been decided to be a webpage could matter a lot in terms of what gets done and what does not. Also whether this webpage is used at all whether by the faculty or the students in incredibly important. Finally, what sort of responses and engagement this webpage receives is also super important because a bunch of college kids posting unproductive criticism of their school to the administration does not seem conducive towards a healthy, productive environment and I don't want response bias.
So, over these past six weeks, how has my idea developed? Well, in short the answer is extensively. Not only has our team created a prototype that has been tested on students and will continue to be developed in order to properly address the aforementioned issues, but we have also learned a ton more about what it means to socially innovate on a college campus. So in summary, both our ideas and how project has developed, and in the future we plan on continuing this growth by utilizing the design thinking process. <span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="background-color:#ffffe0;">Strategic Priority #8.2 (Trinh Nguyen 2022): Pre-college courses</span></span></span> Status quo: Swarthmore students come from a lot of different backgrounds. Low-income students often don’t get access to certain resources in high school that prepare them for college, especially STEM classes. For example, many intro engineering classes with no prerequisites only gloss over the basics of using MATLAB, coding, etc., leaving these students unprepared to succeed and reach their full potential. As a consequence, students are discouraged from pursuing some fields of study because they think they’re not smart enough, which is often false. Since most low-income students are also in marginalized groups, this directly contributes to the current lack of diversity in STEM professions. We need to create equity in the college environment, not just equality - we must focus on uplifting those who are the most harmed by the systemic racism/sexism/xenophobia. Methods: Create pre-college level courses. It is challenging to put into place extra courses - most colleges already suffer from the lack of faculty to teach required classes. Therefore, I propose that Swarthmore provide pre-college level courses that students can take remotely. This can be in the form of subscriptions to online courses or in-person evening classes led by upperclassmen. For the online courses, students can opt into taking them over the break before the main course. During the semester, the in-person evening classes help provide additional support for struggling students. A lot of pre-class materials are usually trivial, like navigating a tool, refreshing on learned concepts, etc. Therefore, these pre-college courses will not be too much of a burden on students, and won’t be counted as credits. Stakeholders: The STEM faculty, Registrar, and students (upperclassmen as teachers, and underclassmen as students).
=Related Links=
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Q1P9pZCbRlv8-eIaHho2ko6pGe65m2PPV9VVw6Z9znQ/edit?usp=sharing 2021 Swarthmore College Fall Landscape Canvas]